STORIES OF THE BADGER STATE. THE BRITISH CAPTURE PRAIRIE DU CHIEN ==================================================================== USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or for presentation by other persons or organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes other than stated above must obtain the written consent of the file contributor. This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Tina S. Vickery ==================================================================== STORIES OF THE BADGER STATE by Reuben Gold Thwaites New York Cincinnati Chicago American Book Company Copyright, 1900, by Reuben Gold Thwaites. Sto. Badger Sta. W. P. 7 page(s) 110-116 THE BRITISH CAPTURE PRAIRIE DU CHIEN Although the Northwest was obtained for the United States by the treaty with Great Britain in 1783, the fur trade posts on the Upper Great Lakes were openly held by the mother country until the new republic could fully meet its financial obligations to her. After thirteen years, a new treaty 0 796) officially recognized American supremacy. Nevertheless, for another thirteen years English fur traders were practically in possession of Wisconsin, operating through French Canadian and half-breed agents, clerks, and voyageurs, until John Jacob Astor (1809) organized the American Fur Company, and English fur traders were forbidden to operate here. The military officers in Canada were firmly convinced that the Americans could not long hold the Northwest. They believed that some day there would be another war, and the country would once more become the property of Great Britain. Therefore they sought to keep on good terms with our Indians and French, giving them presents and employment. Thus, when our second war with Great Britain did break out, in 1812, nearly all the people living in Wisconsin, and elsewhere in the wild northern parts of the Northwest, were strong friends of the British cause. To them the issue was very clear. British victory meant the perpetuation of old times and old methods, so dear to them and to their ancestors before them. American victory meant the cutting down of the forests, the death knell of the fur trade, and the coming of a swarm of strange people, heretofore almost unknown to Wisconsin. These people bad been described to them as an uneasy, selfish, land grabbing folk, who knew not how to enjoy themselves, and were for turning the world upside down with their Yankee notions. Naturally, the easy-going, comfort loving Wisconsin French looked upon their coming with great alarm. The principal event of the war in Wisconsin was the capture of Prairie du Chien by the British, in 1814. Wisconsin was then a part of Illinois Territory, and west of the Mississippi River lay the enormous Missouri Territory. General William Clark, a younger brother of George Rogers Clark, was governor of Missouri Territory, and had in charge the conduct of military operations along the Upper Mississippi River. Governor Clark had heard that the British, by this time strongly intrenched on Mackinac Island, intended to send an expedition up the Fox River and down the Wisconsin, to seize upon Prairie du Chien, which had 7' not been fortified since the old French days. Clark recognized that the power that held Prairie du Chien practically held the entire Upper Mississippi River, and controlled the Indians and the fur trade of a vast region. Accordingly, early in June (1814) he ascended the river from his headquarters at St. Louis, with three hundred men in six or eight large boats, including a bullet-proof keel boat, and erected a stockade on the summit of a large Indian mound which lay on the bank of the Mississippi a mile or two above the mouth of the Wisconsin. The name given to this stockade was Fort Shelby. Lieutenant Joseph Perkins was left in charge of the garrison, which was divided between the fort and the keel boat, the latter being anchored out in the Mississippi. The British expedition from Mackinac had been greatly delayed. During the preceding autumn, Robert Dickson, an English fur trader, bad been engaged in recruiting a large band of Indians in the neighborhood of Green Bay, and with them intended to occupy Prairie du Chien. But the Indians were evidently afraid to fight the Americans, and delayed Dickson so that the canoes of his party were caught in the ice on Lake Winnebago (December, 1813), and he was obliged to go into winter quarters on Island Park (known to the white pioneers as Garlic Island). Poor Dickson had a sorry time with his war party. As soon as it was learned that provisions were being freely given out at this island camp, Indians from long distances came to visit him, under pretense of enlisting under the banner of the British chief. Councils innumerable were held, presents and food had to be given the visitors continually, and Dickson was put to sore straits to keep them satisfied. He found it impossible to get sufficient supplies from British headquarters on Mackinac Island, and was being severely criticised by the officers there, for his exorbitant demands upon them. Nevertheless, unless he kept his Indians goodnatured, they would promptly desert him. He was therefore, forced to rely upon the French of Green Bay for what food he needed. This came grudgingly, and at so high prices that Dickson roundly scolded the Green Bay people, and promised to report them for punishment to the British king, for daring to take advantage of his Majesty's necessities. While Dickson was thus engaged in Lake Winnebago, a British captain was drilling a number of young Frenchmen at Green Bay, and trying to make soldiers of them; at Mackinac, a similar work was being done among the voyageurs by the two leading fur traders of Prairie du Chien, Brisbois and Rolette. On the other hand, at Prairie du Chien, the American Indian agent, Boilvin, was issuing circulars calling on the people to claim American protection before it was too late. Late in June the leaders of the expedition started from Mackinac, under the command of Major William McKay, and at Green Bay, Lake Winnebago, and Portage picked up various parties of French and Indians. These bands were much reduced from those who had been so liberally maintained during the winter, for most of the Indians were anxious to keep away from the fighting until it should be evident which side would win, and many of the French were of the same mind. By the time Fox River had been ascended by the fleet of canoes, and the descent of the Wisconsin begun, the allied forces consisted of but a hundred twenty whites and four hundred fifty Indians. All of the latter, according to McKay's report, proved "perfectly useless." On the 17th of July, the British war party landed at Prairie du Chien, to find the Americans, some sixty or seventy strong, protected by a stockade and two blockhouses, on which were mounted six small cannon. In the river, the keel boat contained perhaps seventy-five men and fourteen cannon. The British had, besides their muskets, only a three-pounder, and the situation did not look promising. Perkins was summoned to surrender, but he declared that he would "defend to the last man." For two days there was a rather lively discharge of firearms on both sides. Apparently, the British were the better gunners; their cannonading soon forced the men on the keel boat to desert their comrades on shore, and McKay then centered his attention on the fort. The Indians were unruly, being principally engaged in plundering the Frenchmen's houses in the village. The British supply of ammunition had quite run out by the evening of the 9th, and McKay was seriously contemplating a retreat, when he was surprised to see a white flag put out by the garrison. It appears that the stock of food had come exhausted in the fort, and Perkins had formed an exaggerated idea of the strength of the invaders. The British guaranteed that the Americans should march out of Fort Shelby at eight o'clock in the morning of the 20th, with colors flying and with the honors of war, and that the Indians should be prevented from maltreating them. This last agreement McKay found it very difficult to carry out, for the savages wished, as usual, to massacre the prisoners. To the honor of the British, it should be recorded that they exercised great J, vigilance, and spared neither supplications nor threats, to insure the safety of their prisoners, whom they soon sent down the river to the American post at St. Louis. When the British flag was run up on the stockade, the name was changed to Fort McKay, in honor of the British leader. During the long autumn and succeeding winter, the British experienced their old difficulties with the Indian allies. The warriors sacked the houses of the French settlers, all over the prairie, and destroyed crops and supplies. A Council after council was held at Fort McKay, and large bands of lazy, quarrelsome savages, encamped about the fort, were fed and were loaded with presents ; altogether, the occupation of Wisconsin proved an expensive luxury. It was no doubt with some relief that the British garrison at last learned, late in May 1815, of the treaty of peace signed on the previous 24th of December, and made arrangements to withdraw up the Wisconsin and down the Fox, and across the great lake to Mackinac. In point of fact, the withdrawal of Captain Bulger, at that time in charge of Fort McKay, was in reality a hasty and undignified retreat from his own allies. The Indians had learned with amazement that the British palefaces were going to surrender to the American palefaces, without showing fight, and simply because somewhere, far away in another part of the world, some other palefaces, whom these Englishmen had never even seen, had held a peace council and buried the hatchet. This sort of thing could not be understood by the savages encamped outside the walls of Fort McKay, save as an evidence of rank cowardice. They called the redcoats a lot of " old women," became insolent, and even threatened them. Captain Bulger saw that it would not do to await the arrival of the American troops from St. Louis, so he sent an Indian messenger with a letter to the American commander, telling him to help himself to everything in Fort McKay. Then, only forty-eight hours after the arrival of the peace news, he pulled down his flag and hurried home as fast as he could, fearful all the way that an Indian war party might be at his heels. Thus ignominiously ended the last British occupation of Wisconsin.